Neighbours in Southeast Asia

Class 7 Social Science · Chapter 14: India and Her Neighbours · NCERT Exploring Society: India and Beyond section 14.6

Learn

Thailand shares a sea boundary with India. Indian traders reached it by the 3rd century BCE, and its old kingdoms carry Indian names: Dvāravatī (6th–11th centuries) from Kṛiṣhṇa's Dvārakā, and Ayutthayā (founded 1351) from Ayodhyā. Thai kings of the Chakri dynasty are all named Rama, and Bangkok's airport shows the churning of the ocean. Malaysia once used a script based on Brāhmī; in the 19th–20th centuries many south Indians went to work on its rubber plantations, and about 9% of Malaysians are of Indian origin.

Singapore takes its name from Singapuram, "lion city". It became a separate nation in 1965, has Tamil as one of its four official languages, a neighbourhood called Little India, and strict rules that keep streets clean; it is now a big investor in India. Indonesia is an archipelago of over 17,000 islands. Trade with Java and Sumatra goes back 2,000 years; its currency shows Garuḍa, actors perform the Rāmāyaṇa, and the mandala-shaped Borobudur is the world's largest Buddhist monument. After the 2004 tsunami, which killed some 15,000 people in India, India and its neighbours built an early warning network, with a centre in Hyderabad.

Explore: which country?

1. Sort each clue.

Remember

• Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia show deep Indian cultural imprints in names, scripts, epics and monuments.
• Shared disasters like the 2004 tsunami led to shared warning systems.

Quick check

The Thai kingdom of Ayutthayā was named after …

1. Ayodhyā
2. Dvārakā
3. Pāṭaliputra
4. Varanasi

Think about it

Indian culture spread to Southeast Asia without conquest. How?

Practice

Practise with fresh questions at three levels (easy, medium, hard), some answered hands-on, with hints and worked answers. Get 4 of your last 5 right to finish the topic.